In this essay I will be focusing on the works of Francesca Woodman and Keith Arnatt, exploring the act of the pose in the self-portrait as an effect of performance.
Despite one of the first staged, posed photographs to be produced undertaking conceptual and artistic innovation (Hippolyte Bayard’s “Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man” 1840- a photograph in which the artists creates a scene to stage his own death), the proposal of the posed image is more commonly associated within the editorial industry in fashion and advertising; thus imposing upon us certain connotations and expectation of fantasy within the photographic, essentially agreeing that we understand that what we’re looking at has in fact been set up. Furthermore, the studio, we acknowledge, is a place where construction and manipulation of the environment takes place.
Using the idea of our common associations to their advantage, some artists evoke an illusion of complexity by providing elements of realistic perception within a space that conventionally is recognized as fiction ‘the studio’, or on the contrast, by bringing features of the fictitious into a space that is acknowledged as the everyday and usual. These are both themes, which Francesca Woodman’s “Providence, Rhode Island” 1976 and Keith Arnatt’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self” 1969-72- are suggestive of. Therefore, I argue that these works exist within the fictional dialogue, and can be understood within backgrounds of surrealist theory.
David Bate discusses this concept of contrasting conventions, whilst looking at what constitutes a surrealist photograph, and acknowledges the enterprises of the surrealist movement. “Surrealism shows itself as an interruption within ‘rational’ discourse...
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...pany explains how the use of traces in the photographic can elude to the recording of time and reality, a predominant feature in both artists work. “A photograph is an image that bears the mark of the real. The light that illuminates the world is the light that records its image. In this sense all photographs are traces. However the world itself contains traces or marks…. A photograph of a trace is perhaps the opposite of the ‘decisive moment’. It is the moment after. It records the marks made by the world on the body and the body on the world. Both performance and conceptual art utilized the photograph as a means of recording traces.” (2003:88). The consideration that Campany suggests, of the trace being the “opposite of the ‘decisive moment’” further indicates again the idea of the staged image. In this particular image, it is that exactly that Arnatt appears to
People usually expect to see paintings and sculptures in Art Galleries. Imagine the surprise one finds when they are presented with a man stitching his face into a bizarre caricature, or connected to a machine which controls the artist’s body. These shocking pieces of performance art come under the broad umbrella that is Postmodernism. Emphasis on meaning and shock value has replaced traditional skills and aesthetic values evident in the earlier Modernist movements.
Curtis’s work represents the ideological construction of foreign cultures in the 'way of seeing' that is suitable for the audience of the photograph and the photographer. This illustrates the highly political motives of photograph, carrying multiple meanings in order to craft certain imaginations of the subject (Berger, 1972). As a result of the power that the photographer has on its subjects, certain messages and ‘way of seeing’ are depicted through photographs. For instance, expected gender roles are played out in photographs of the Indian subjects, portraying the expectation of Curtis and his audience of the masculine and feminine behaviour by the subjects conforming to such gender standards (Jackson, 1992). Indian men are captured in what Jackson (1992) describes as ‘active poses’, such as fishing or dancing, juxtaposed with the ‘passive poses’ of female subjects, photographed in more decorative postured of waiting and watching. Though it can be argued that the manipulation and selection of images by Curtis as an artist’s ‘creative manipulation’ of their work, Curtis’ photography was used as a scientific measure, and hence should be devoid of such influences (Jackson,
The development of modernist sentiments is largely the result of spasmodic cultural transformations and the ensuing creative exchanges between architects, modern artists and designers. For the purpose of research, this paper will solely deal with Surrealism, an important aspect of Modernism and chart its development through two contemporary Australian surrealists – James Gleeson and Sidney Nolan.
Women in pictorial history have often been used as objects; figures that passively exist for visual consumption or as catalyst for male protagonists. Anne Hollander in her book Fabric of Vision takes the idea of women as objects to a new level in her chapter “Women as Dress”. Hollander presents the reader with an argument that beginning in the mid 19th century artists created women that ceased to exist outside of their elegantly dressed state. These women, Hollander argues, have no body, only dress. This concept, while persuasive, is lacking footing which I will attempt to provide in the following essay. In order to do this, the work of James Tissot (b. 1836 d. 1902) will further cement the idea of “women as dress” while the work of Berthe
As viewers, we often don’t consider the three-dimensionality of objects when evaluating their authenticity. In terms of paintings, for instance, a public portrait is seen as more authentic from the painter’s point of view, while self-portraits are seen as authentic images of the subject and the painter. Considering one more authentic than the other seems ludicrous as they each illustrate divergent types of authenticity. However, as John Berger argues in Ways of Seeing, self-portraits are less stiff and rigid, and more personal, “They are there in all their particularity and we can study them, but it is impossible to imagine them considering us in a similar way” (98). One painting in particular, Autorretrato con Pelo Corto by Frida Kahlo, manages to capture what a public portrait of Kahlo would not; it, among many things, clues in her divorce, sexual identity and orientation, and health issues.
The techniques used reveal insights into the genre and philosophy behind these paintings. Surrealism has its roots in the ideas of Dada. According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2014), Dada centres on automatism where there is little or no planning of artworks - a concept which is explored in the quote from Rene Magritte. This gave way to the more contrived and conceptual manifestations witnessed in Dali and Gleeson's paintings. Dali used what he described as "hand-painted colour photography" (Mariorenzi, 2005) to depict with a hallucinatory effect the transformation of Narcissus. It is this which gives it it's Surrealist effect. Magrette's definition is very concrete, however surrealism is a loose term that encompasses many ideas. Just because it does not fulfil some criteria, it does not ...
The camera is presented as a living eye in her work, capable of bending and twisting, contorting reality in its own light. It is at the same time a sensuous device, one that exp...
...in Great Britain. The exhibition was a compilation of personal interests of Paolozzi ranging from all kinds of photographs. The show’s principle was similar to the unity assumed in a person’s life. ‘Parallel of Life and Art’ was Autobiographical as Paolozzi put it. The exhibition depended on the parallels which might be drawn from one photograph to another.
From the creation of art to its modern understanding, artists have strived to perform and perfect a photo realistic painting with the use of complex lines, blend of colors, and captivating subjects. This is not the case anymore due to the invention of the camera in 1827, since it will always be the ultimate form of realism. Due to this, artists had the opportunities to branch away from the classical formation of realism, and venture into new forms such as what is known today as modern art. In the examination of two well known artists, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock, we can see that the artist doesn’t only intend for the painting to be just a painting, but more of a form of telling a scene through challenging thoughts, and expressing of the artists emotion in their creation.
Janet Fish is an American still life artist who works in a variety of mediums. She can be considered a realist, though by no means photorealist. However, the artistic liberties she frequently takes regarding color and light, as well as her individual style, negate this description. Her art is more full of life with these fun elements than a still life is typically considered to be. Janet Fish’s oil painting, Provence, manipulates the effects of light, the vividness and lucidity of color, and the implied texture of glass to create a sense of movement, vivacity, and unity.
In Confronting Images, Didi-Huberman considers disadvantages he sees in the academic approach of art history, and offers an alternative method for engaging art. His approach concentrates on that which is ‘visual’ long before coming to conclusive knowledge. Drawing support from the field of psycho analytics (Lacan, Freud, and Kant and Panofsky), Didi-Huberman argues that viewers connect with art through what he might describe as an instance of receptivity, as opposed to a linear, step-by-step analytical process. He underscores the perceptive mode of engaging the imagery of a painting or other work of art, which he argues comes before any rational ‘knowing’, thinking, or discerning. In other words, Didi-Huberman believes one’s mind ‘sees’ well before realizing and processing the object being looked at, let alone before understanding it. Well before the observer can gain any useful insights by scrutinizing and decoding what she sees, she is absorbed by the work of art in an irrational and unpredictable way. What Didi-Huberman is s...
Rosemont, F. (ed.), 1978, André Breton. What is Surrealism? Selected Writings, Pathfinder, New York, London, Montreal, Sydney.
of Our Lady so he starts to associate the "Tower of Ivory" and "House of
The first work of art ‘Surreal’ by Marcus A. Jansen is an oil enamel collage on canvas done in 2009 hanging in the MW Gallery Aspen. Marcus Jansen fits into the general category of contemporary postmodernism because of the time period in which he paint, the various high and low subject matter he incorporates into his paintings, and his use of appropriation or barrowing. Jansen’s painting ‘Surreal’ appropriates images from Pablo Picasso’s painting ‘Guernica’ done in 1937, which depicts that towns bombing during the Spanish Civil Wa...
The women which Stephen comes across in his journey in becoming an artist define him and change him by nurturing him, fascinating him, and inspiring him. Stephen was forever changed by his mother, the Virgin Mary, Eileen, the prostitute, and the seaside woman. The object of the artist is to create the object of the beautiful, I argue that it was the beauty in the women of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which created the artist in the end.